Next in Line at Wimbledon

The morning after the elimination of a resilient U.S. team from the World Cup, in Brazil, my wife and I found ourselves standing in a field on the outskirts of London, waiting with thousands of others for admission to Wimbledon. We joined The Queue not long after dawn, and were soon handed a card informing us that one thousand five hundred and sixty-three people had gotten there before us. (In a tradition unique among the four Grand Slam tennis events, Wimbledon makes available a certain number of same-day tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. Except for the last four sessions, these daily tickets include several hundred spots each for Centre Court and Court One, where the showcase matches take place.) Among the fifteen-hundred or so people ahead of us were some who had been living out of tents on this verdant spot for days, hoping to see defending champion Andy Murray’s quarterfinal match against Grigor Dimitrov—never mind the fact that, at the time the fans’ vigils began, neither man had qualified for the quarterfinal.

Watching the U.S.-Belgium match in a pub the night before, I had been struck by the generational reversal in British and American sporting fortunes in soccer and tennis. While the U.S. had progressed further into the World Cup than England in 2014, no American man has won Wimbledon since Pete Sampras in 2000. In fact, no American man has seemed to be a contender since Andy Roddick’s loss to Roger Federer in the 2009 final. Gone are the days of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, or Pete Sampras playing for the championship on the Fourth of July. In short, Wimbledon was a lousy place for a U.S. sports fan to seek consolation after the excruciating extra-time loss to Belgium. John Isner, the only seeded American man in the 2014 Wimbledon draw, had been eliminated in four sets in the third round by the nineteenth-seeded Feliciano Lopez a day earlier. Among the women, both top-seeded Serena Williams and twelfth-seeded Sloane Stephens had been defeated in the early going. Worse was to come. On Tuesday, Venus and Serena Williams were forced to retire from their second-round doubles match after Serena appeared disoriented on court, hitting four consecutive double faults. Officially termed a “viral illness,” Serena’s condition has been the source of much discussion since.

Though we were too late to be eligible for the showcase courts, my wife and I had arrived early enough to buy tickets to Court Two, where an American eminence was still on display. The top-seeded Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, who were also the defending men’s doubles champions, were scheduled to play a quarterfinal match against the ninth-seeded pairing of Julian Knowle and Marcelo Melo (an Austrian and a Brazilian, respectively). The Bryans got off to very slow start, winning only nineteen of the first fifty points, trailing their opponents in first-serve percentage and losing the first set, 6-3. They looked out of sync and unprepared for the lithe, precise playing of Knowle and Melo. As the second set headed to a tiebreaker, the tension got to me. I decided to go for a walk and take a look at some of the juniors.

Two promising American teen-agers happened to be playing on courts nearby. On Court Five, the sixteen-year-old Francis Tiafoe, from College Park, Maryland, seeded seventh, was playing the unseeded Yunseong Chung, of South Korea, and losing early in the first set. Tiafoe, whose father emigrated from Sierra Leone to the U.S. in 1993, has a ferocious serve and a powerful forehand. Initially, Chung bedeviled him with terrific court coverage and an unflappable demeanor, using Tiafoe’s power against him, prolonging rallies until Tiafoe overswung. But, as the match wore on, Tiafoe exerted greater control over his emotions and his groundstrokes, and finally overpowered Chung, taking the first set in a tiebreaker and the second 6-3.

On Court Six, the eleventh-seeded Michael Mmoh never looked to be threatened by the unseeded Jan Zielinski, of Poland. Mmoh, who is also sixteen, displayed plenty of power, but executed his game with an élan and confidence that made him more enjoyable to watch than Tiafoe. Mmoh’s father, Tony, was an A.T.P. pro, and played for Nigeria in the Olympics. Born in Saudi Arabia, Mmoh, like Tiafoe, was raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The scoreline of 6-3, 6-2 is an accurate indication of how efficiently he dispatched Zielinski. Mmoh and Tiafoe are on opposite sides of the draw, and it is conceivable that these two Maryland-reared tennis prodigies could meet in a retro all-American final, though each would have to win his next three matches.

Somewhat cheered at the bright prospects for American men’s tennis (seven Americans made it to the third round of the boys’ draw), I headed back to Court Two to discover that the Bryans had settled back into the dominant form that has won them more Grand Slam doubles tournaments than any other men’s pair. They defeated Knowle and Melo in four sets, 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4, 6-4. Meanwhile, on Centre Court, Andy Murray was in trouble, trailing Dimitrov two sets to none. We abandoned Court Two and headed for Murray Mount, the slope of grass behind Court One that was formerly known as Henman Hill, after Tim Henman, who came closest before Murray to ending the British men’s drought at Wimbledon.

It looked as though the thousands who’d queued with us earlier that morning had reconvened here on the bank of grass before the giant-screen TV, unfurled picnic blankets, and popped bottles of champagne to prematurely celebrate Murray’s advance to the semifinals. A fretful buzz permeated the sun-kissed bacchanal. There was little to cheer for as Murray went down feebly, 2-6, in the third set. After the match, his Bulgarian opponent said that Murray didn’t seem “quite right.” There were reports that the defending champ shouted expletives in the direction of his box during the tense second set, and rumors of disagreements with his new coach, Amélie Mauresmo. One thing’s for sure, though: neither an American nor a Briton will win Wimbledon this year.